Dental bridgework



J. J. STARK DENTAL BRIDGEWORK im.l ze, 1924. 1,485,306

Filed Dec. ff. 1922' y/llllllIllI/llllllll/ /lllIlll/Ylllllll/L'IJ ATTOR/VEYS Patented F eb. 25, i924.

JACOB J. STARK, OF BROOKLYN, NEW YORK,

DENTAL BRDGEWORK.

Application filed December 7, 1922. Serial No. 605,475.

To all whom t may concern:

Be it known that I, Jnoo'J. STARK, a citizen of the United States, and aresident of the city of New York, borough of Brooklyn, in the county ofKings and Sta-te of New York, have invented certain'new and usefulImprovements in Dental Bridgework, of which the following is a full,clear, and exact description. y

This invention relates to dental bridge work, and more particularly aimsto provide a new and improved means for removably mounting one or moreartiiicial teeth between two natural teeth in the mouth.

The invention as preferably applied is used Vfor intradental work, thatis, the natural teeth in the gums' form the anchorages for the femalemembers, in any suitable way, as by means Well known in the art.

It is a fact well appreciated that much difiiculty has been experiencedwith such mountings as previously proposed, and especially thosemountings in which the female members on the natural teeth and the malemembers carried by the removable bridge are both of T-shape, as isdesirable, and with the head of the male member comprised of twosubstantially V-shape'd headvalves on oposite sides of the shank, eachsuch half constructed of a unitary length of spring metal integral withthe shank. Such a head as so constructed frequently requires manualadjustment of the opposite legs of the V, to increase or decrease theresilient pressure of these parts relative to the appropriate femalemounting on the bridge. Repeated adjustments of this kind quicklyfatigue the localized line of bend at the apex of the V, the head losesits required resiliency, and often a leg of the V will break on?.

An important object of the invention is to overcome this diiculty, asthe result of making the head of the male member of such shape as toprovide a multiplicity of bending points or lines; in other words, tomake the head readily resiliently distortable and solely as the resultof mounting the bridge in the mouth. Y

Another diiiiculty experienced with previous mountings of the aboveindicated character has been that if the spring-action of the head of amale member is set so that the bridge may be arranged in the mouth toavoid looseness detrimental to proper mastication and without danger ofloosening the bridge accidentally, the bridge is rigidly male and femalemember anchored; and then the bridge is exceedingly uncomfortable, andit is incapable of a limited'movement relative to the natural teethsimilar to that which nature provides for each naturaltooth relative toanother.

A further object of the invention is Yto overcome this latterdifficulty, also, While avoiding the necessity for a pivotal or looseconnection between.V the shank of a male member and the anchoringnatural tooth; which, it is obvious, is not desirable, although suchpivotal or loose connection is favored to a large extent at presentas'being a lesser evil than a bridge incapable of any relativemovement'whatever.

According to the present invention, and as preferably carried outpursuant to the structure shown in the yaccompanying drawing, or anequivalent, this last-mentioned object is attained automatically by theprovision of such structureto attain the first object mentioned. v Y

lVith these and various other objects in View, the invention consists incertain novel features of construction, and combinations andarrangements of parts, as will be hereinafter described and pointed outin theV claim.

In the accompanying drawing, which shows by way of example, a Vpossiblestructure according to the invention as at present preferred, and inwhich similar reference characters refer to similar parts throughout theseveral views: o

Fig. l is ahorizontal section, showing Y joined, and taken on the linel--l of Fig.l Y Y n Fig. 2 is a vertical section, taken on line 2 2 ofFig. l; A

Fig. 3 is a perspective view of the male member; and i Fig. l is asimilar view of the female member.

The parts are shown on a scale in the drawing.

As shown best in Figs. 3 and 4, male or stud member 5 conforms to theconvential construction in so far as the same is T- shaped in plan, isformed of an integral strip of material as illustrated, which materialis preferably a spring metal, and has its T-head formed of twohalves,r'each in` cluding two reversely bent portions; and female orsocket member 6 also conforms to convential construction in-that thesame has a tubular wall 7, a bottom 8 to establish a greatly enlargedgeneral cup term, a cross-sectional area to receive snugly the head ofthe male member, and a slot 9 to take the root Yof the shank l() of themale member when the parts are assembled by sliding the head l1 of themale member down into the interior of member 6.

The constitution and construction ot each half ot head ll. ot member 5are of the essence of the present invention; although a notch 12 cutinthe root ot shank l0 of the member 5, combined with the tact that theslot 9 of member 6 does not reach quite to the bottom of its cup,thereby to permit mounting.

the parts to be arranged with approximately leve-letop and bottomsurface-s as shown in Fig. 2, is a valuable feature of the new Thus, itwill be noted that member 5, in addition to the shank 10, includes aT-hcad, each arm of which includes a strip ot spring metal bent to Jforma spring bow, the concavities of said bows tacing each other and thetree ends ot the T-arms being substantially in line with the shank.Also, each such bow. at its Jfree end adjacent to the Yfree end ot theother bow,

carries rounded portions le adapted to slideY on each other when thebows are compressed toward the shank. These rounded portions are hereinwardly directed cylindrical projections, which may conveniently beformed, as illustrated, by winding the transverse marginal lengths ofthe bows around pins or studs l5, soldered, welded, or otherwise securedin place.

AIt will thus be seen that the new male member structure includes ashank and integral resilient continuations :oppositely directed awaytrom the shank and then inwardly directed toward the same to form aplurality ot T-head portions each bendable at a multiplicity of pointswhile resiliently resisting such bending. Otherwise stated, each half ofthe T-head, being abow, is bendable transversely along lines in aplurality of planes perpendicular to the plane of extension of theshank. Thus, each bowed spring'element at the T-head of the male memberis warpable simultaneously at a plurality of points along the line ofcurvature of the bow. It has also been found that the head et the malemember when thus directed has uortions resiliently relatively inovableto adapt the head for distortion both laterally of the shank, toward andaway from the shank, and also rockable relative to the shank on an axisparallel to the line ot extension of the shank. The invention may besummed up in one word, as to its most salient characteristic, bypointing out that each halt oft the T-head of the male member issubstantially U-shaped in plan and transversely resilient practicallythroughout its length` whereas the prior art device above discussed hasa T-head each halt ot which is V-shaped in plan, and limited to alocalized line of bend at the apex of the V, Jfor varying the resilienttendency of the T-head to increase its lateral dimensions; and,moreover, such variation is not automatically responsive to the mainmounting of the bridge in the mouth, but must preliminarily be manuallyperformed.

I would s1 ate in conclusion that while the illustrated exampleconstitutes a practical embodiment of my invention, the same, as aboveindicated. is merely an example of one ot the multitude of ways inwhich. the same may be carried out; and I do not limit myself strictlyto the exact details herein illustrated, since, manifestly, theconstruction may be considerably varied without departure from thespirit of the invention as dei-ined in the appended claim.

I claim:

In a device of the class described, a stud structure T-shaped in plan,said structure including a shank forming the T-stem and including a pairof resilient strip elements arranged side by side integral continuationsot said elements being oppositely directed away from, the stem and theninwardly directed toward the stem. to form a plurality ot Thead portionseach bendable at a multiplicity ofV points to vary the shape of the stemwhile resiliently resisting such bending.

JACOB J. STARK.

